Last year, a military judge in Germany ruled that the jury verdict needed to be unanimous in the court-martial of an Army officer who has since been found guilty on two counts of attempting to sexually abuse a child. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, but not granted a vote until this year.īut it is an issue that has recently been debated by top military courts. Gaetz's office did not respond to a request for comment on his thinking behind the amendment, which was offered in previous years by former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., would change the Uniform Code of Military Justice so that court-martial juries need to come to "unanimous concurrence" for convictions and sentences. The NDAA amendment, which was offered by Rep. military justice system from requiring unanimous verdicts since majority jury verdicts have been the standard in other militaries since colonial days. "So, I don't think unlawful command influence should be a basis to deny those who are in the military unanimous verdicts."Įric Carpenter, a former military lawyer who is now a law professor at Florida International University, also said inertia has kept the U.S. "We expect junior enlisted members to be able to push back against unlawful orders even if it comes from high-ranking officers, and that would be an unlawful order," Christensen said of an officer attempting to pressure a lower-ranking service member to rule a certain way. "The Supreme Court has recognized that unanimous verdicts are the gold standard of justice for all Americans, other than those in the military," said Don Christensen, a retired Air Force colonel who served as the service's chief prosecutor.Ĭhristensen, who stressed that he believes court-martial verdicts should be unanimous for both convictions and acquittals, said the military has resisted changing the standard by arguing that requiring unanimous verdicts could slow down court-martial proceedings or lead to unlawful command influence. That makes military courts the last in the nation that don't require unanimous verdicts after the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the Sixth Amendment requires guilty verdicts in civilian criminal trials to be unanimous.
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